A House is Just a House Unless It's a Home
by jamespotteriloveyou
Summary: The house was nothing special. It was of average size and there wasn't really anything remarkable about it. It was actually rather a mess as no one had lived in it for some time.


**Hello everyone! It's October so I thought I would contribute to all the Jily madness going around with this! I hope you enjoy it :)**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or his beautiful parents. That's JK Rowling's thing.**

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****The house was nothing special. It was of average size and there wasn't really anything remarkable about it. It was actually rather a mess as no one had lived in it for some time. The front garden was an absolute mess. The paint on the wooden fence at the sidewalk was chipping and the gate looked in need of some new hinges. The shutters were hanging crooked on either side of the large window on the first floor. The walls were covered in an old-fashioned floral printed paper and the carpet was dusty and smelled a little of mold.

The young couple arrived at the gate on a blustery fall day as if they had appeared out of nowhere, bickering about something or other. The man huffed, took his scarf off, and wrapped it around the woman's neck. She looked at him with narrowed eyes, but he knew that she was only being difficult. She slid her gloved hand into his gloved hand and they both turned to look at the house.

"Well it would definitely be a project," the man grumbled. The woman shot him a winning smile and pulled him through the gate and up to the door.

As she described the visions in her head of blue walls and a couch in front of the fireplace the man couldn't help but begin to picture a home there. He saw his boots sitting by the door and their cloaks hanging on a hook in the front hall. He could see one of his mum's old afghans laying over the back of the couch and one of her mum's cookie jars on the counter in the kitchen. There would be a harmonious mixture of Muggle and Wizard objects in the house- a television in the sitting room, a cauldron in the kitchen.

He walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.

"It'll be perfect."

She looked over her shoulder, her face lit up with a brilliant smile, before she went back to detailing where each piece of furniture would go.

The front garden was cleaned up and filled with flowers that pleased both the eyes and the nose. The fence was painted white and the hinges on the gate were fixed. The shutters were aligned on either side of the large window on the first floor. The floral printed paper was torn from the walls and the dank, old carpet was replaced with hardwood floors.

They ended up painting the walls blue and they put a couch in front of the fireplace. When James came home from a mission he took his boots off at the door and hung his cloak on a hook in the front hall. Lily snuggled up with the afghan that had come from James' mum at night and filled her mum's cookie jar full of yummy treats. There was a television that gave the sitting room a blue glow in the evenings and a cauldron in the kitchen that was used for brewing potions.

In the few short years that James and Lily lived there, the house was many things. A place to hold parties. Somewhere to sleep off a hangover. A place to live. A place to love. Somewhere to raise a child. A place to hide.

In the years since James and Lily and their son Harry have lived in the house, long after their bodies were buried in the ground and their son was taken to his aunt's, it has become a mess again for it has been quite a long while since anyone has lived in it. The front garden is a mess and the fence needs a fresh coat of paint. The gate's hinges are rusty again and the shutters hang crooked on either side of the large window on the first floor. If you ventured inside you would see that the paint is old and dingy-looking and the wooden floors are coated with dust at least an inch thick.

But the house hasn't been unremarkable since that young couple moved in all those years ago and filled it with memories and love. Memories of happiness and sadness and every emotion in between. Love that was so strong, it saved their son from certain death. The house is still just a house but on that blustery fall day when the young couple so in love decided to call it their home, the house became something remarkable.

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**There we go! What did you guys think? I really would love to know so drop me a review and tell me! :)**


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